Dying Is My Business Page 7

  We jumped the curb onto the mall, narrowly avoiding the tall stand of bleachers that angled above the TKTS windows at the north end, where theater buffs normally stood in long lines to buy cheap Broadway tickets. Luckily, at this hour there were no customers lined up there or I would have plowed right through them. Past the bleachers there were dozens of tables and chairs arranged along the pedestrian mall. They were all empty, the tourists and transients who normally sat there must have seen us coming and took off. It sounded like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun as the Explorer plowed through the tables. Plastic chairs, abandoned Styrofoam coffee cups, fast-food wrappers, and empty plastic shopping bags bounced and slid off the hood and windshield.

  I hit the brakes and spun the wheel, but we were going too fast to come to anything resembling a controlled stop. The Explorer struck a cement barricade at the far end of the mall. The next thing I knew we were off the ground and tilting sideways, then upside down. The cubes of safety glass from the broken window jumped off my lap and out of the leg well, raining up to the ceiling. I felt the seat belt strain under my weight, the strap cutting into my shoulder and chest. The Explorer came down on its roof, skating across the section of Broadway that was closed to traffic, and crashed into the side of a clothing store, shattering the store’s floor-to-ceiling display window. Only then, finally, did we stop.

  My head, neck, and shoulders throbbed. The wounds on my back flared with new pain. I reached for the seat belt and, bracing myself, released the buckle. I tumbled upside down from my seat, bumping my neck and shoulders against the ceiling. I winced and tried to get my feet under me again. I had to scrape my knees and shins past the steering wheel, but finally I lay on my side and did a quick check of my limbs. No broken bones. I was lucky. “Are you okay?” I called back to Bethany and Thornton.

  They lay in a tangled heap below the overturned backseat, caught like flies in the web of their seat belts.

  “I have some exciting new wounds and my right arm seems to be bent the wrong way, but otherwise I still feel dead,” Thornton replied. “Thanks for asking.”

  “My leg,” Bethany groaned, her voice laced with pain. “I’m jammed in.”

  From the way the car was lying, I couldn’t see the Black Knight, but I knew he wasn’t far. If he found us like this, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I thought about how easily that sword of his had cut through metal. I didn’t want to know what it would do to us.

  “Thornton, help Bethany,” I said. I crawled through the hole where the driver’s side window used to be and out onto the sidewalk. I stood up, but I was still dizzy from the accident. I steadied myself against the side of the car. People on the sidewalks in the distance still had their cell phone cameras raised, flashes popping. Damn. If any of them got a clear picture of my face, not only would I have botched this job, I would have blown any chance of getting information out of Underwood. My only hope was that the cameras were too far away to capture any detail.

  Then, slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn’t the one they were taking pictures of. The Black Knight trotted up and slowed his horse to a stop. He dismounted. He didn’t pay any attention to the crowd across the street. His attention was fixed on me.

  I tried to tug open the car’s back door, but it was wedged stuck. I dug in against the sidewalk and gave it another yank, a hard one. With the loud groan of metal scraping against metal it opened, but only halfway. “Can you move?”

  Bethany looked up at me, her teeth clenched against the pain. “I don’t know, but I’ll damn well try.”

  I looked over the top of the overturned car. The Black Knight was striding toward me, holding his sword low.

  “If you’re going to try, you better do it now,” I said. I pulled my gun from the back of my pants and aimed down the barrel at the Black Knight. “Back it up,” I shouted. The Black Knight ignored me, continuing toward us. I cocked the gun. “Back the fuck up.” He drew closer, lifting his sword. “Fine. I warned you,” I said, and squeezed off two shots in quick succession.

  Both of them ricocheted off his armored breastplate. It didn’t even slow him down.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I said. I put the gun away and squatted down by the open door again. “Can one of you tell me why everyone is immune to bullets all of a sudden?”

  They’d gotten free of their seat belts, and now Thornton was trying to push Bethany toward the door with his left arm. It wasn’t working. “See if you can pull her out,” he urged me. His right arm hung limply at his side.

  I took both of Bethany’s hands and pulled, but she gritted her teeth in pain and didn’t budge. “Get out of here, Trent,” she said. “There’s no point in all three of us dying.”

  “When are you going to stop trying to get rid of me?” I said.

  I spotted the Anubis Hand lying near her. If the Black Knight was the king of the gargoyles, did that mean the Anubis Hand would have the same effect on him that it did on the gargoyles in the warehouse? There was only way to find out. I pulled the staff out of the car.

  “Just run, Trent, before you get yourself killed!” Bethany yelled.

  I walked around to the front of the car and faced the Black Knight, holding the staff in both hands. “We don’t have the box you’re looking for,” I said.

  The Black Knight lifted the heavy, angry-looking sword over his head and brought it down toward me. I swung the staff, knocking his blade aside. I followed through with the momentum, spinning around and ramming into him with my back. I brought one elbow up hard into the Black Knight’s breastplate. The metal felt as hard as rock. Pain surged up my arm. The Black Knight didn’t so much as stumble.

  Still, he moved slowly in all that armor. I could use that to my advantage. Before he had a chance to get his sword up, I spun again, and this time I swung the staff up and out. The Anubis Hand struck the Black Knight’s helmet full on.

  I waited for the flash of light, for the Black Knight to be thrown backward in a blazing inferno, but nothing happened. Instead, he shrugged off the blow and came at me again.

  Shit. I backed away, holding the staff defensively in front of me. I risked a quick look over my shoulder. Thornton was out of the car and helping Bethany through the door. His limp right arm was crooked at the elbow in a way that looked painful. The leather bracelet hung cockeyed at his wrist. Bethany had an angry cut on her right knee that dripped trails of blood down her jeans leg. I turned back to the Black Knight just in time to see him raise his sword, preparing to strike.

  As the blade came down, I brought the staff up to block it. The sword cleaved the staff in two, and suddenly I was holding two useless pieces of wood, one with a mummified fist attached to it. Damn, I thought, now what?

  “Run, Trent!” Bethany shouted. “You can’t win! He’ll kill you!”

  Maybe I couldn’t win, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave them here for the Black Knight to cut to pieces. I held the two halves of the broken staff like clubs and took a deep breath. I didn’t have a plan, let alone a strategy for fighting him, but there was no way I was going to let this asshole get past me.

  I ran at him and got past his sword before he could swing it. The Black Knight pivoted, and hit me across the face with his armored forearm. It felt like getting hit by a steel girder. I fell onto my back. The two pieces of the staff fell out of my hands.

  The Black Knight loomed over me. He lifted his black-bladed sword high, its sharp point gleaming above my face.

  “Fuck you,” I said, “and the horse you—”

  Before I could finish, the Black Knight drove his sword down toward me.

  Nine

  I rolled aside. The Black Knight’s sword clanged against the pavement where my head had been only a moment ago. He raised his sword and brought it down again. This time I rolled in the opposite direction, narrowly avoiding the sharp edge of the blade as it buried itself deep in the concrete. As the Black Knight struggled to pull the sword free, I got back on my feet.

  There wasn
’t enough time to run. The Black Knight yanked the sword free, sending tiny bits of concrete showering through the air. He advanced on me again and swung the sword. I jumped back, feeling how close the point came to my chest as it cut past me. I took another step back and bumped up against the Explorer. The Black Knight kept coming. With nowhere else to go, I climbed on top of the overturned vehicle.

  On the sidewalk, Bethany sat leaning against the wall of the clothing store. She grimaced in pain and rubbed her injured leg. Thornton stood feebly beside her, his broken arm preventing him from carrying her to safety. In this condition, they were helpless. It was up to me to keep the Black Knight away. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish that. Bullets didn’t hurt him. Neither did the Anubis Hand. I needed a weapon of some kind, but I didn’t have anything.

  The Black Knight started toward Bethany and Thornton, the metal of his armored feet hammering the sidewalk. Desperate to draw the Black Knight’s attention away, I shouted, “Hey!” The Black Knight stopped and looked up at me. I was surprised it worked.

  The Black Knight remained as stoic and silent as ever, staring up at me through his visor. I grinned back at him. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but at least I had his full attention. He kept looking up at me, not making any attempt to climb up onto the car after me. I wondered if his armor was too heavy to let him.

  “What’s the matter, are you too lazy to climb up here, or are you just afraid of heights?” I taunted. “How many fights has the mighty Black Knight lost because someone got up on a chair? Are you always this pathetic, or is this a special show just for me?”

  The Black Knight rose straight up off the ground, levitating like a circus trick until he hovered at the same height as me.

  Shit. I backed away. Hanging in midair, the Black Knight took a step forward, placing one armored boot onto the Explorer, then the other. Balanced on its roof, the Explorer tipped forward under the Black Knight’s weight. He stomped toward me, the tip of his blade pointed at my chest. I backed up the incline of the overturned vehicle, raising my hands defensively.

  “I told you, we don’t have the box,” I said.

  He took another step forward. I got the feeling he didn’t care whether we had the box or not. He just wanted us dead. I took another step back.

  “Trent, get away from him!” Bethany shouted from the sidewalk.

  I reached the end of the Explorer, and stopped. There was nowhere left to go. Below, it was only a short drop to the street. I could easily make the jump if it weren’t for the fact that it would lead the Black Knight directly to Bethany and Thornton.

  The Black Knight took another step forward. Standing at the center of the vehicle now, his weight shifted the balance again. As the Explorer tilted, it threw both of us off our footing. I wobbled and steadied myself, but the Black Knight was wearing heavy, cumbersome armor. It took longer for him to regain his equilibrium. I wouldn’t have another chance to catch him off guard, I realized. It was only when I was already barreling toward him and saw the Black Knight lift his sword to skewer me that I realized I’d done something stupid again.

  I was close enough to grab the wrist of his sword hand before he struck. I struggled to keep the sharp edge of the blade away from me, not to mention the hooked barbs on the other side. This close to the Black Knight, I could see through the slits in the visor of his helmet, but I didn’t see anything inside, not even streetlight reflecting off his eyes. There was nothing on the other side of that visor but darkness.

  “Don’t let him touch you!” Bethany shouted.

  But it was already too late. The Black Knight wrapped the hard fingers of his gauntlet around my neck. The metal felt unnaturally cold against my skin. To my surprise, the fingers of his gauntlet grew even colder, burning my skin like frostbite as they squeezed. I struggled to catch my breath.

  Something wormed its way into me then, something dark and icy that flowed from the Black Knight and hollowed me out inside. It sapped my energy. I felt sluggish all of a sudden, exhausted. I had to force myself to stay upright. Desperate, I moved one hand away from the Black Knight’s wrist and clutched the metal gorget over his neck. We wrestled, locked in our awkward embrace as we tried to overpower each other.

  The Black Knight’s sword inched closer. I gritted my teeth and pushed harder against him. The icy metal fingers sank deeper into my neck. The frozen blackness inside me continued its work, draining my energy. In a few moments I would either black out or my windpipe would be crushed. Probably both. I pushed as hard as I could, every muscle in my body tensing to the breaking point. My head throbbed. It felt like I was going to explode.

  Suddenly, a bright, bluish-white light poured out of my hands and spread like lightning across the Black Knight’s armor. He released me, and the cold darkness that had been spreading through me dissipated instantly. He stumbled back and staggered from side to side, rocking the overturned car precariously. Then he doubled over like a drunk in pain.

  I stared, my mouth hanging open. What the fuck…?

  I didn’t have time to think about it. The web of bluish-white light around the Black Knight sizzled out. He started to straighten, already recovering. I rushed him, ready to put my hands on him again and hoping that whatever had just happened would repeat itself. He didn’t give me the chance. Before I reached him, the Black Knight burst apart. His body separated into a dozen big, black crows. They scattered, cawing, and flew up into the night sky. Stunned, I watched them fly away until I couldn’t see them against the dark anymore. The Black Knight’s horse was gone, too, I saw. Vanished like it had never been there.

  This night was getting crazier. Or maybe I was. Either way, it looked like I’d won. Even if nothing else made sense, I knew that this, at the very least, was a good thing.

  I hopped off the overturned car. I collected the two halves of the staff and brought them over to Bethany and Thornton. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess a staff isn’t so great against a sword.”

  They stared at me with their mouths agape. “It doesn’t matter,” Bethany finally said. “The staff is just a piece of wood. The power is in the hand itself.”

  I supposed that made sense for something called the Anubis Hand.

  Sirens blared suddenly in the distance. Not just one or two cruisers this time. It sounded like dozens. After all the damage the Black Knight had caused, including two demolished police vehicles, the NYPD clearly wasn’t taking any more chances. From the sound of it, they’d called in every cop they could find.

  “We have to get out of here,” Thornton said, before I could. “The last thing we need is the police getting involved. Bethany, can you walk?”

  The gash in her leg looked pretty painful, but she used the wall behind her to push herself up from the sidewalk. Then she winced and groaned and slid back down onto her backside. “Damn it. I—I don’t know if I can.”

  “You’re going to have to,” I said. I handed the pieces of the staff to Thornton so I could help her up. With his good arm he tossed one segment of the staff aside and kept the segment with the fist. He put it in the pocket of his long coat, fist first.

  I held out my hands, and she put hers in mine. They looked so small and delicate that they reminded me of doll’s hands. I helped her to her feet. “Thanks, I think I’ve got it,” she said. I let go. She stayed upright.

  The sirens grew louder. We ducked around the corner, with no choice but to head back toward Eighth Avenue. We moved too slowly for my liking, with Bethany limping and Thornton still not fully mastering the art of walking on dead legs. We only made it half a block before Bethany had to stop. The three of us piled into the shadowy, recessed doorway of a Broadway theater that was locked up for the night.

  I poked my head out and watched the cops pull up to the overturned Explorer. They’d brought the riot van with them. I took that as a good sign. It meant they didn’t know what to expect when they got here, they’d only gotten reports of a disturbance in Times Square. They weren
’t looking for anyone in particular. More to the point, they weren’t looking for me.

  The Explorer’s plates were fake. They couldn’t be traced back to me or Underwood. But my fingerprints were all over the car, a cinch to dust and lift. I had no idea if my prints were in AFIS. Certainly the people Underwood sent me to steal from weren’t the type to call the cops, but there were thirty-odd years I couldn’t account for. But even if my prints weren’t in the system, what about Bethany’s and Thornton’s? They were thieves too, even if they refused to call themselves that. Did they have records? Their prints and DNA were all over the inside of the car. They could lead the cops right to me.

  “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Just how many item have you ‘secured’ before now?”

  “Lots,” Thornton said. “We’ve been doing this for years.”

  I watched some of the cops inspect the car while others interviewed people in the crowd. Cell phones changed hands, pictures and videos being replayed for the authorities. I wished I knew what was on those videos, or how clear they were.

  “Do the cops know who you are? Do they know your faces? Have your fingerprints?”

  “No,” Bethany said. “We’re careful. Always. We don’t leave a trail.”

  “You left enough of a trail for the gargoyles to find you,” I said. “The Black Knight, too.”

  “There’s a world of difference between the Black Knight and the NYPD,” she insisted.

  That didn’t make me feel any better, but it would have to do. “Can you walk?” I asked.

  “I’m going to need a minute.” She bent over to inspect the gash in her leg.

  I was antsy and wanted to keep moving. The more sidewalk we could put between us and the cops, the better. I turned to Thornton and for the first time noticed a long strip of skin had been scraped off his cheek in the car crash and was now dangling from his cheek. I could see the striations of the pale, bloodless muscle beneath. “You should fix your face. It’ll attract attention like that.”